Before discussing how the Advent readings differ from year to year, it is important to remind how they are the same.
The readings for the First Sunday of Advent each year always address the culmination of all things. These readings also set the focus of the entire season: to prepare us for Christ’s return.
The readings for Advent 2 and 3 always focus on the ministry of John the Baptizer and his announcement of the beginning of the culmination of all things.
Advent 4 always involves Mary in some way. The readings for each year also always include her song, called the Magnificat because of how it begins in Latin ("Magnificat anima mea Dominum," "My soul magnifies the Lord"). Mary's song addresses both what her yet to be born child will unleash in his first coming and what will happen in the new creation in the age to come. While the annual attention to Mary on this Sunday brings us close to the Christmas story, in no case is the point of this Sunday, much less the season, about preparing Christians today for the coming of the Christ child. That was in the past. We commemorate and contemplate Christ's birth and and contemplate the implications of God's incarnation for our present age during Christmastide. On Advent 4 the point is to remind us of the implications of Christ's first coming for the fulfillment we await at Christ's return.
All three years begin with a gospel reading from some part of Jesus’s teaching about the time to come, often referred to as each gospel’s “little apocalypse.”
In all three years, the gospel reading provides the core themes for the other readings selected for that Sunday. In Year A, we read from Matthew, in Year B primarily from Mark, and in Year C, Luke.
And in all three years the verb that functions as the call to action in the gospel reading for Advent 1 sets the theme for season of Advent that year.
That's the source of the primary differences between the three years.
In Matthew (Year A) the call to action verb is “Be ready.” In Mark (Year B) it is “Be on watch.” And in Luke (Year C) it is “Take care!”
While these differences are subtle, they are also significant. “Be ready” from Matthew sets up a focus in Year A on preparedness now for the age to come. The core spiritual work Advent in Year A is on developing or strengthening practices that improve our responsiveness to and service in the name of Jesus here and now. The Hebrew Scriptures readings are all from First Isaiah, attributed to the eighth century BCE prophet in Judah around the time that the Northern Kingdom, Israel, had been obliterated by Assyrian invaders. Much of Isaiah’s own ministry involved helping leaders face into a coming crisis demanding many changes in how people would live their lives. John the Baptizer’s ministry, highlighted on Advent 2 and 3, calls for much the same in light of the coming of the kingdom of God. Epistle readings from Romans and James point to practices to help fulfill Jesus's call to be ready whenever he returns.
“Be on watch” from Mark in Year B calls attention to the need for expectant waiting and the practices that support it. The companion readings from the Hebrew Scriptures are from Second Isaiah, written during the latter part of the exile of Judah into Babylon (mid-sixth century BCE). The exiles, too, were waiting expectantly for a coming deliverance. These readings help us get in touch with the ways in which we may be currently living as exiles, not yet in the promised home we will have in the fullness of God’s kingdom. This expectation acknowledges the challenges of our current situation and, at the same time, sees glimmers of the promise in the present as it awaits the fullness to come. Epistle readings from Paul’s writings and 2 Peter call for watchful expectation and the practices needed to maintain it.
“Take care” from Luke in Year C calls us to attend diligently to the state of our own lives with God and one another. Of the three years, this is the most penitential, the most introspective, and the most focused on justice. The gospel readings draw awareness to our sin and our propensity toward sin, as well as what we need to do reduce our likelihood of being overcome by those propensities. The Hebrew Scripture readings draw from several prophets across several different time periods (from before the exile in 586 to nearly two centuries after the return from exile in 539). These focus on God’s intention to deliver and take care of God’s people. Epistle readings from Paul and Hebrews accent the outpouring of love-- God's toward us and ours toward our neighbors-- as the means of overcoming the power of sin in our own lives.
Be ready. Watch. Take care. The Advent readings pursue three different themes in the the three different years, each with its distinct focus on cultivating spiritual practice, and all worthy of revisiting in three years’ time.
Burton Edwards is director of Ask The UMC and former chair of the Consultation on Common Texts (2015-2022), which created the Revised Common Lectionary.
